Kodi depends largely on repositories and add-ons that you install to stream your favorite shows and movies. It is always irritating when Kodi runs into an issue, especially as it can be hard to find the core cause of a problem on your own. While the most common suggestion given is “check Kodi’s logs,” this is not always useful since the logs are designed with professionals in mind.
The good news is that most of the Kodi app’s issues can be resolved in just a few minutes. In this blog, TechNinjaPro will help you find out and resolve some of the most common Kodi issues. With luck, your issue will be fixed, and you can get back to watching your favorite movies and shows in peace.
TechNinjaPro will provide some direction, guidance, and insight into common issues you might face when using Kodi. It is crucial to note that third-party add-ons are less stable than official ones, and they are disreputably unreliable and usually come with their own issues. In addition, third-party add-ons often use unlicensed sources. For these reasons, TechNinjaPro advises you to use only official add-ons.
Why you should Always Use a Virtual Private Network with Kodi
Virtual Private Network Services usually mask unlicensed streaming from a users’ ISP. Despite this, using a virtual private network can significantly benefit people who use official streaming sources. VPN services work by encrypting a user’s online traffic. This stops it from being accessed by any outside snooper. This renders most MITM attacks useless and stops your internet service provider from throttling your internet connection based on your internet browsing habits.
Every virtual private network will slow your internet connection down to some degree, so it is essential to find one with minimal impact on your internet browsing speeds. Also, some VPN services keep detailed logs of your internet activities. This greatly reduces the level of security and privacy you can expect your VPN service to provide.
Note: TechNinjaPro recommends using PureVPN. Moreover, it is one of the simple VPN services to install on an Amazon Firestick and keeps no logs of your internet traffic.
Best VPNs for Kodi
PureVPN is certainly one of the best VPNs for Kodi. If you are looking for a quick way on which VPN services work with Kodi, TechNinjaPro has rounded up its top recommendations below.
Some of the most common Kodi Issues?
Kodi is one of the best media services and can be installed on many devices, including Nvidia Shield, Roku, and Apple TV. However, while Kodi works similarly across platforms, each device has different system resources, subroutines, and profile folders. This can make it hard to troubleshoot Kodi issues. For example, you may run into problems while fixing Kodi on your Amazon Firestick that never occurs on the Android version of your app. For this reason, while the solution below works in most situations, TechNinjaPro cannot guarantee that they will show the root cause of an issue across entire Kodi installations.
There are many types of Kodi issues you may run into include:
- Kodi crashes when it loads
- Kodi streams would not play at all
- Kodi crashes and reboots constantly
- Kodi is not able to connect to a source
- Kodi cannot install an addon
- Videos frequently stutter
- Kodi streams are not working
1. Kodi crashes when it loads
Remove recently installed add-ons or updates
If Kodi is constantly crashing, it shows that something has gone wrong. Firstly, consider when this issue started and what your actions were before the issue began. If the problem started after installing a specific add-on, try uninstalling it and seeing if the issue persists.
Similarly, if you installed an add-on update or personalize Kodi build, you might need to uninstall this to remove it as a potential reason. Note that specific add-ons may not have been updated to work with Kodi; if you have not used Kodi in a while, it may be good to start over instead of manually reinstalling every add-on you have ever used.
Stop hardware acceleration
Hardware acceleration is one of the reasons for Kodi’s crashes. You could try turning this decision off to see if the problem goes away. Doing this is easy, as mentioned in the steps below:
- Tick the gear icon to open the settings menu from the Kodi home screen.
- Tick Player Settings.
- At the bottom, you will find another gear icon with the word Basic beside it.
- Tick this three times, and it should turn to “Expert.”
- Now highlight the video tab, scroll to the bottom of the page on the right.
- Disable hardware acceleration DXVA2 option.
- Restart Kodi and see if the crashing still persists.
Clear your app’s cache
When Kodi plays your favorite streaming videos, it downloads a few seconds to the cache. This allows for faster access to smooth video streaming. However, when the cache fills up, it can cause the Kodi app to behave erratically. A rough video is a tell-tale sign that the cache is getting complete, and even though the cache often empties itself, sometimes it needs to be flushed manually.
Kodi does not have any built-in tools that enable you to do this, so you will need to install the Indigo add-on from the TV add-ons repo. Once installed, tick the maintenance tools tab, then click the clear cache button on the right.
Reinstall Kodi
If the steps mentioned above have not solved your problem, you might need to consider an updated Kodi installation. You can either do this yourself by downloading your chosen version or using the Indigo tool’s Factory Restore option, found under the maintenance tab.
2. Kodi streams would not play at all
There are many core reasons why a stream might not load. Firstly check that you are connected to the internet. You cannot watch videos hosted online without internet access. The add-on may no longer work. Unluckily, development teams come and go all the time, usually due to the threat of legal action, In a situation like this, you would not be able to install new add-ons from the repo in question, and add-ons you already have may become unstable or decline to work.
This possible error occurs when you try to access a geo-restricted service outside its required region. For example, if you attempt to use the iPlayer add-on from outside of the United Kingdom, the stream would not load. Before starting the add-on, you can easily bypass these limitations by connecting to a virtual private network in the appropriate region.
3. Kodi crashes and reboots constantly
There are many reasons why Kodi might get stuck in a reboot loop. If you have installed any custom builds, they are likely the culprit and should be removed using the Indigo tool. If this does not solve your issue, try disconnecting your PC from the internet. TechNinjaPro suggests this because the URLResolver dependency usually causes issues, and if Kodi does not have internet access, this service cannot do its job. If this prevents your crashing problem, try updating it by clicking the gear icon on Kodi’s home screen and then System Settings.
Next, scroll down to the add-on tab and tick manage dependencies. Tick URLResolver, then click update. If this solution does not work, you can either uninstall add-ons until you find the one responsible for the crashes or just reinstall the Kodi app to start again with a fresh slate.
4. Kodi is not able to connect to a source
Kodi repositories are often installed by offering a path to the source. Sometimes you may find that once the source has been added, you will see a prompt telling you that it could not be accessed. This is typical because the source address is not correct. Check it and make sure that you have entered it correctly. Common mistakes include misspellings, forgetting to include http:// at the start, and missing the repo’s file extension in some situations.
If the source’s address has been entered correctly, more often than not, the repository has been moved to a new source address. You can check this by opening the source address in your internet browser; if the folder is empty, that is the root cause of your problem. Try researching the repositories to see if it has been moved to a new address but bear in mind that substitute hosts are not trustworthy.
5. Kodi cannot install an addon
If you have managed to install a repository but an add-on fails to install, many possible causes exist. The add-on may be outdated or no longer supported by its developers. In this scenario, there is a bit you can do. Elder versions may still be hosted elsewhere, but these are not guaranteed to work, and the older an add-on gets, the more risk it poses to your system when installed.
In addition, outdated add-ons may not work with newer versions of Kodi. New versions of Kodi have changed how the app reads and processes add-on code, making some outdated add-ons obsolete with updated versions of Kodi.
The add-on may have uninstalled dependencies, and these are added add-ons that are needed for the initial add-on to work. In the end, probably, this specific add-on does not work with your Kodi. For example, LibreELEC users could not install the Netflix add-on due to its reliance on files not present in OS platforms.
6. Videos frequently stutter
Most of the time, a slow network signal or slow network speeds are the root cause of streaming issues. If you cannot find any issue with your internet network, another reason might be. Specific content providers limit access to their content using a process known as geo-locking. This checks the IP of anyone attempting to access the content and rejects the connection if the IP is not from the specific region.
The excellent news is that this is easily bypassed. Users can connect to a VPN server in the preferred location and will be able to access the geo-restricted content. The correct server to connect to is often fairly clear: the BBC restricts anyone inside the United Kingdom, NBC limits those outside the United States, and so on.
7. Kodi streams are not working
A known error can create your Kodi add-ons not to perform searches, updates, or stream perfectly. For example, you may find that some add-ons cannot pull any new or old content, even if it should be available. If this is the situation, try checking your device data and time.
Mainly if you are using a set-top box purchased through Amazon, there is a chance the date and time are incorrect. Kodi and its add-ons use the system date and time to pull data properly. If that data is wrong, you may in-addon searches may pull in bad results or restricted results, impacting your streaming and add-on updates.
FAQs
There are many causes why Kodi is not working on your device. Some popular causes include no stream available, failed dependency error, buffering, add-ons freezing, and more described above.
Yes, Kodi works on various devices, including Android Box, Firestick, and much more.
Conclusion
Kodi is one of the best freeware apps you can use on your device. Kodi allows you to access media content from the internet. However, it may experience some issues that irritate users. Fortunately, some problems are resolved by doing some easy steps, in which sometimes the user can resolve them by simply rebooting the device. You have to be familiar with some common issues and fixes to know what to do when you experience any issue in your Kodi app.